Chapter Text
“First thing’s first. I’m Barney. That’s Adrian. Now… Who’s in charge here?”
Barney looked around the small group of rebels who all looked ready to fall over at a moment’s notice from the battle. Among the living were five men, four women, and three vortigaunts, one of which was wearing a long leather coat.
The woman who was standing in the middle of the group while being flanked by two of the vortigaunts held a strange device in her arms, but Adrian paid it no mind. He was too focused on her eyes.
They were filled with a raging fire of anger from the battle, but they were also cold as ice in the way she seemed to analyze everything around her. There was a trickle of drying blood caked down the left side of her face that started at her forehead to end at her cheek. She reminded Adrian of the lioness he would see in a nature documentary, watching and waiting for her moment to strike.
Adrian noticed how the other rebels would cast looks in her direction. Yet, she was the only one to keep her focus squarely on Barney and himself.
He only realized he’d been staring too long when she locked eyes with him. He flinched under her gaze.
He meant to apologize, but what came out instead was, “Neat gun.”
Her eyes narrowed as she looked him up and down, “Thanks…”
“You in charge?”
She shook her head. “No one’s in really in charge here.”
Adrien narrowed his eyes in thought as he took in her disheveled appearance. Right before they left, Magnusson had fished out a heavily creased piece of printer paper with a grainy black and white photo on it. If her face was free of dirt and blood, he believed it could be who they were looking for.
“Are you her?” He finally asked.
She finally lowered her strange gun and rolled her eyes, “Need to be more specific.”
Adrian frowned at that. “Are you Chell?”
“Could be, but what’s it to you,” she growled, the gun lifting upwards slightly.
Adrian pursed his lips in anger while he heard Barney start laughing at the exchange. “Fair enough. We’re from White Forest, and we were sent by Dr. Magnusson to find someone named Chell.”
“The Magnusson!” The vortigaunts all chimed at once.
Crow stepped forward and gestured to Chell, “This is the Traveler that you seek. She has fought hard and prevailed in her journey.”
Chell shot a look of mild panic to Crow but schooled her expression back to a neutral one. “How can we trust you?” She questioned.
“Fear not, for it is hard to find anyone more reliable than the Calhoun and Shephard,” the Vortigaunt in the duster answered.
“You know them, Eastwood?” Moira asked.
Eastwood, the vortigaunt, shook his head, “Not personally. Our kin share tales of the valiant efforts of those in this unending war. They speak highly of the Calhoun and Shephard.”
Chell looked between the Vortigaunts and the two men. She noticed Adrian had a sheepish look on his face, while Barney rubbed at his own. Her eyes narrowed at them in suspicion before allowing the portal gun to hand at her side. “Okay. I believe you.”
“Just like that?” Adrian cocked an eyebrow at her.
Chell nodded. “Just like that.”
Adrian looked out the corner of his eye and saw Barney smile and nod his head. “Glad we got that settled, but now we have a new issue. How are we going to get everyone back to White Forest? We weren’t expecting such a large group.”
A murmur went through the group on how long it could take to get to White Forest on foot, but then Eastwood stepped forward and gestured towards the tree line. “Fear not, for this one has spotted transport.”
Adrian looked back to the trees and squinted. Just near the trees in a secluded area protected by a few tall pines stood three of the strange geometric vehicles he’d seen flipped over on the drive to the coast.
Barney sighed. “No good. We need clearance to operate them properly, and I doubt my old civil protection codes will work on them.”
Chell, or so Adrian believed as she neither confirmed nor denied, wasted no time striding through the rubble, her strange boots clicking against the concrete, then becoming muffled as the ground became dirt and grass.
“What is she doing?” Adrien asked Barney as they watched Chell try to open the door of the APC, but only to find it locked.
Barney shrugged as he watched her crawl beneath the vehicle. “I think she’s trying to hotwire it… But it won’t work. Those things were designed to be tamper-proof from the outside.”
“Maybe you could go help her? You seem to know more about them than I do,” Adrian suggested.
Barney watched her for another couple moments as she watched her crawl out from under the APC. “Crow! Apollo! I could use your help!”
The wrinkled vortigaunt and the orange-eyed vortigaunt moved past Barney and jogged out to Chell. Seeing them move to her broke Barney from whatever stupor he had been in and followed after along with Adrian.
When the men arrived, Adrian noticed Chell’s expression had shifted from a guarded look to steely determination. She had a strange curved spike in her hand and in the other was a black metal box with wires coming out of it
“You don’t want to tear that off. It could lock the entire vehicle off and render it unusable,” Barney said as he crouched down near Chell.
Adrian watched as Chell rolled her eyes. “I’m not getting rid of it!” She then proceeded to hold it out to the Vortigaunts, who took it with a smile. “Mind giving this some juice?”
The more wrinkled vortigaunt channeled green energy between its hands before allowing it to flow through the metal box and into the vehicle.
Barney let out a sound of protest but was silenced when the APC’s lights started flashing wildly for several seconds and all doors to crack open. Chell laughed at the result. “Didn’t think that would work!”
She then disappeared into the APC, and the men could hear her fiddling around with the controls. Moments later, the sound of the engine turning on could be heard.
Adrian laughed at Barney’s stunned face. Whoever she was, Adrian liked her.
It took just over an hour to get three of the APCs running and for the rebels to be on the road to White Forest. Barney took the yellow muscle with Moira. Chell, Adrian, Roger, Rita, and Apollo were in one vehicle, while Crow, Eastwood, and the rest of the rebels were divided into the others. Each APC, besides Barney’s, had a vortigaunt to share information with each other.
Had it not been for the vehicles, there was no telling how long the trip would take to White Forest. If they keep a good pace, the group would arrive before sunrise the next day. Much faster than the pace they had set to arrive at the port.
Chell took over the driver seat without asking if anyone else wanted to take control. Rita took the passenger seat, that left Adrian, Roger, and Crow sitting in the back. Adrian was squeezed between Roger and the back of the driver seat chair, while Crow was sitting across from him, the large central eye fixed on him. He felt like it was staring, but it was hard to tell.
He couldn’t help but think back to Black Mesa and how he killed several of them in his pursuit to escape that hell hole. He joined the Marines to protect the people he cared about, but he never expected to fight aliens. It was one of those jokes people had growing up about training to fight E.T. who wanted to steal Earth’s resources, but he never thought it would happen.
Then the shit hit the fan…
If it wasn’t for Barney clueing him in on what happened over the last two decades, Adrian would most likely not hesitate to plunge his knife into the eye of another vortigaunt.
The memories of driving his blade into the eye of a vortigaunt while fighting off the black ops assholes made Adrian squeeze his eyes shut. He couldn’t think about that. He had to keep moving forward or risk being distracted. A Marine can’t have their thoughts wander away from the mission, or they risk getting themselves and their family dead.
There was a deep rumbling sound from the other side of the APC. Looking up, Adrian realized it was the vortigaunt humming. He was sure the vort was looking at him then. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet the Shepherd of Men,” it finally said.
Adrian huffed in amusement. “I’m sorry?”
“You are the Shephard, are you not?”
“Yeah… my name is Adrian Shephard…”
“Then you are the one my brethren speak of in high regard to almost the same level as the Freeman,” Crow said.
Adrian remembered how the Vortigaunt back at White Forest called him the Shepherd of Men but never thought much about it. He killed several of them in the past, yet the ones he met acted as if he was their hero. Adrian didn’t think of himself as a hero. He had only tried to survive the bowels of Black Mesa. He was meant to die in that loading bay with the giant green octopus worm, but Houdini’s asshole of a cousin with the glowing green eyes had other plans.
What he wouldn’t give to wipe the smug look off that bastard’s face.
He was pulled from his thoughts by someone smacking his knee. He jerked up to see Chell reaching behind the seat, without taking her eyes off the road, and was trying to get his attention. “You awake? I asked what White Forest is like!”
“Oh, sorry. It’s… it’s nice? I’d only been there for a few days when I was sent out to find you with Barney,” Adrian answered, amusement in his voice.
“Really? Why send the new guy?”
Adrian shrugged, despite Chell not seeing it, “Guess quality military training is hard to come by?”
That made Chell chuckle. “Military? They still have some soldiers up around to train people?”
Adrian furrowed his brow, not a hundred percent sure how to answer. He couldn’t just come out and say what happened to him. No one would believe him, yet this girl somehow knew Dr. Magnusson despite looking around Adrian’s age. She would have been a kid twenty years ago, and he doubted a child would be spending time around the prickly cactus that is Arne Magnusson.
Was she some kind of long lost daughter? Adrian quickly shook that thought away. The girl clearly had some sort of Asian descent and possibly something else, but she in no way resembled Arne Magnusson.
The thought was confusing him to no end, so he couldn’t stop himself from asking, “So how do you know Magnusson?”
She was silent for so long that Adrian didn’t think she heard him. It wasn’t until she sighed, “I wish I knew.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“It means I don’t know!” Chell snapped. She then sighed loudly while everyone looked towards her. “Just don’t talk about it, okay?”
Her outburst made Shepherd visibly flinch in his seat. He heard the other man, Roger, snort before looking over at Adrian. “Tough luck, man.”
Adrian ignored the jab.
Roger, realizing he wasn’t going to get a response, turned his attention back to the front. “How are you holding up there, Rita? Need a break?”
“I’m fine. I can go a little longer,” the woman yawned.
Adrian noticed how Chell’s head swiveled to look over at Rita. “Wrong. You and Roger switch places.”
“Chell, I’m fine. Promise,” Rita said, stifling another yawn.
“No. I’m vetoing that. Get in the back and rest. You got hit pretty hard and nearly drowned-“
“But-“
“Now, Rita,” Chell commanded, using that same tone she had just used with Adrian.
Rita didn’t say a word as she sighed and began to unbuckle herself. She then began to maneuver herself into the back.
Roger had then stood up and reached out to grab Rita to help her sit, one of his hands gripping her bicep, the other on her side.
Then the vehicle hit a sudden bump in the road, and it caused the two people standing up to scramble to hold on to something. One of Roger’s hands, the one on Rita’s side, fumbled to grab onto something. What he caught wasn’t the most ideal.
Rita looked down at Roger’s hand and sighed loudly, “Mind getting your hand off my ass?”
Roger’s eyes widened as he realized what he grabbed, but it quickly morphed into a smirk. “Sorry, but it’s just so soft…” He immediately let go of her and allowed Rita to sit down without support.
Before he could get away, Rita sent a quick boot to Roger’s own behind. He managed to catch himself on the back of the driver and passenger seats from the force of the kick. Adrian couldn’t help but chuckle at the blush that crept onto Roger’s face.
That was how the trip went as the sun finally set, and the group drove through the night. The caravan would stop every couple hours for people to stretch their legs and relieve themselves if needed, but after each break, someone else would take over driving.
He noticed how Barney wouldn’t let anyone else drive. He’d have to confront him about it soon, but it wasn’t the time or place. Besides, Adrian would want to have Sven there when it happened. The large Russian man wasn’t someone Adrian wished to cross.
The cold gray light of dawn was just fading into orange when Adrian started to see familiar radio towers in the distance. Relief flooded his senses at the prospect of finally arriving back to base.
Back in Arizona, he had a routine whenever they’d be relieved of duty for the day. His first stop would be a shower with water as hot as it could go. Second would be his shoes would be polished, before he’d finally pull out a magazine or comic book. Still, he’d only get one or two pages read before succumbing to sleep.
Adrian knew he wouldn’t be able to do everything like before, but he would just need to find a new routine.
As the vehicles pulled up to the gates and the group of rebels hopped out, it was hard not to notice the number of armed rebels outside, ready to open fire. It made Adrian smile that they were hesitant. For god’s sake, they showed up in the vehicles belonging to the enemy. Anyone would want to have a weapon ready to fight.
Once it was clear that there was no danger from the group, the White Forest rebels rushed in to check for the wounded. Everyone was taken to the medical bay to be treated for the various injuries that couldn’t be healed from the Strider battle due to the shortage of supplies.
Rita was looking a little wobbly on her feet, but Roger was able to keep her steady as he lead her through the gates. The two soon disappeared into the base proper. That’s how everyone moved towards the infirmary. Some limping, others being practically carried, but all heading towards the sanctuary.
Chell was limping a little, so Adrian approached her and shifted her arm to loop across his shoulders.
She ripped herself away from his touch, her eyes cold as steel. “I didn’t ask for your help!”
Adrian sighed as he held up his hands, palms outwards. “True, but I was just trying to help.”
“If I wanted it, I would ask, or you could offer it without barging in,” Chell snapped back, eyes full of ice.
Adrian pursed his lips in annoyance. But realized she was right. Yeah, he could be brash at times, but he’d never be allowed to hesitate in the field. Hesitating would lead to people dying, and his squad would always help each other pick up the slack. Whether that was carrying each other to the med bay or helping someone carry a heavy bag, a Marine couldn’t do anything without their brothers’ help.
Chell wasn’t a marine. She was a civilian who had seen some heavy shit.
Adrian recognized that coldness to her eyes. He had seen it in the men who had seen war zones and combat. They all came back with a faraway gaze or eyes like daggers. Half the people Adrian had come across since arriving at White Forest had one of the two looks, but Chell’s eyes… They were the eyes of someone who had fought for their life. The eyes of a survivor.
Adrian rubbed at the back of his head and groaned, “I’m sorry. It- It’s a habit. It was drilled into me to always pick up the slack for others, and- I don’t really know anymore. It’s hard to be around people again… Normal people, at least.”
Although her eyes still had the impenetrable ice wall, it almost appeared as if some of it melted. The corners of her eyes softened the tiniest amount, and her tight lips loosened. “I can understand that. If you want to help, that’s fine, but just ask next time.”
“Yes ma’am,” Adrian said, a serene smile spreading across his face. “Now… Would you like some help?”
Chell eyed him up and down, her eyes narrowing in thought. She then turned on her feet, “Not really. My legs are just sore, not injured.”
Adrian stood and watched her go before laughing and jogging to catch up. He really liked this girl.
As they walked, Adrian would point out things to Chell. Mostly the direction of barracks, cafeteria, training yards, and such. She wouldn’t say anything but nodded her head. He did notice how she would scan every inch of the base as if looking for something.
As the two rounded a corner, Adrian saw Barney in what looked to be a one-sided yet heated conversation with Arne Magnusson. The scientist was gesturing around the hall, but his voice not being raised like Adrian would have suspected.
When Barney shook his head and lolled his head around, he met Adrian’s gaze. That caused Magnusson to figure out what had caught Barney’s attention.
It was almost comedic to see all the annoyance and frustration vanish from Magnusson’s face to only be replaced by that of a fish out of water. Eyes wide open and mouth agape, gently moving as if trying to form words.
Had he been looking, Adrian would have noticed Chell had a very similar expression.
The two people slowly started closing the distance.
Adrian watched as Chell and Magnusson took slow steps towards each other, neither of them saying a word. They only stopped moving when there were only three feet of space between them to go.
It was Chell who finally broke the silence. “Arne?”
“Chell...”
“Can you tell me who I am?”
Magnusson frowned at that, but he did nod, “I think we should talk…”